


Close Only Counts

by thealphagate_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-28
Updated: 2006-03-28
Packaged: 2019-02-02 02:18:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12717696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealphagate_archivist/pseuds/thealphagate_archivist
Summary: Grieving can last a lifetime, just as truly living can take but a moment, a single risk.





	Close Only Counts

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the archivists: this story was originally archived at [The Alpha Gate](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Alpha_Gate), a Stargate SG-1 archive, which began migration to the AO3 in 2017 when its hosting software, eFiction, was no longer receiving support. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are this creator and it hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Alpha Gate collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thealphagate).

Daniel drove home, fading adrenaline leaving him queasy, tired.

Some things...

...some things were better left buried.

He still tasted the dust, or at least the memory of it. He could still hear the grind of rock, the soft wet noise that they'd been unable to protect him from. Old grief resurged, raw and new and he thought that he'd been over this for years but he wasn't; he'd never truly been over it.

How did one ever get over such a thing? It was, if he were honest, always there, a stone lodged in the heart, a small sliver of granite grown over and ossified and yet still there, always there.

He forced himself to stop at the local strip mall, to go into the small specialty grocer he liked. Somehow he put together a basket of needful things: feta and olives and wraps and tomatoes and juice and the thin chocolate biscuits he'd bought in England, ones that he could now only find in this one store.

And then he found himself staring at bottles, class and cut and etched and cobalt. Considering wine over whiskey, the merits of fast drunk versus lasting drunk, all the while knowing he wouldn't get drunk at all, not really.

Or perhaps just enough to take the edge off, like anaesthetic.

He found his way to the checkout with a small bottle of Tequila Herradura Anejo. It was, if he remembered right, rich and gold, hot enough to burn away the dust, the choke of tears from his throat.

Perhaps enough to lay old ghosts to rest for a little while.

Dinner came first, hastily wrapped together, swallowed down and drunk with orange juice. Then came the rituals of mundane things, the small sacred nothings. Dusting, cleaning, laundry. Each transition was marked by a sip, hot and peppered and strong on the tongue, enough to make his mouth sting where he'd bitten it bloody. By the time the sun was going down and the house was his again, it burned all through his body and yet his throat was still thick with tears.

He wanted to smash the bottle, let it splinter and bleed gold all over the hardwood, wanted something messy and violent and senseless to vent the child's impotence that still ghosted his grown heart. Instead he downed another measure, splintering something inside himself, letting it shatter and fall. 

Maybe he would get drunk, after all, but he didn't feel drunk, didn't think he could get there from where he was. The stone in his heart shifted, bled.

He startled, stood when the front door shook under a firm fist. He tried to ignore it, but it just kept pounding away. He knew who it was. Who it always would be.

"Go away, Jack," and his voice was gentle, measured, almost pleasant as he leaned against the solid wood, rested his forehead against the coolness of it. 

"Don't think so, Daniel," and Jack's voice was utterly cheerful, utterly implacable. Jack O'Neill, the original immovable object. Or was that unstoppable force? Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing Jack would keep knocking all night until he'd checked in, checked up.

It would be ... endearing, if it didn't make Daniel want to strangle the man. "Yeah. Yeah," he sighed, unlocking the door before going into the kitchen and refilling his glass. 

Jack found him leaning against the fridge, sipping slowly. He set down the beer he was carrying, picked up the tequila. Whistled. "Not such a cheap date, after all, Daniel."

"Damned expensive date," Daniel agreed, lifting his glass in salute. Jack grinned lopsidedly, keyed open a longneck and returned the gesture. "Though sometimes, I miss the moonshine."

"That stuff was deadly," Jack said, a little wistfully. "I mean, if you wanted to go blind or kill Goa'ulds, that'd be your beverage of choice." They stood there, in Daniel's clean kitchen, saying nothing at all for a very long time, just drinking as the room grew darker. Finally, when it was nothing but shadows, Jack shifted, came in closer. "You okay?" He didn't look at Daniel except for one brief, flickering glance, but Daniel felt the heat of it on his skin.

"No," said Daniel. "Not really. Are you?"

Jack snorted. "Hell, no." He made a sweeping gesture. "I'm not sure I can see okay from here, and I keep having this urge to high-stick the shit out of stuff just to hear it smash."

Daniel blinked slowly, pulled off his glasses and set them on the counter. "And so you came here because ...? What, I have more stuff that smashes?" he said carefully.

Jack nodded. "Yeah, well, I figured since most of your stuff already came in pieces...?" and then he reached out, fingers quick and warm and fleeting on Daniel's bare forearm. "I got to thinking that if I was wanting to smash stuff, maybe I'd come here and find things a little smashed." He nodded to the tequila. "And they are, aren't they?"

Daniel tried to grin, but it just went horribly wrong on his face, all impossible angles and teeth. "I'm probably legally impaired, but I wouldn't say smashed." He used to be able to lie better. He really did. Jack's eyes lifted, held his, bright and disbelieving. "Okay, yeah. A bit smashed. Today just... sucked." He shrugged helplessly.

"Like a Hoover," Jack agreed. "Still. My little trip down memory lane ... as hard as it was, I think there's a big difference between that and what you had. I mean, I was a soldier when it happened, and it happened to a soldier, even if he was my friend, so ... we always knew the risks. Christ. Daniel. You were just a kid." 

The awkward empathy in his eyes made Daniel flush and twist, made him turn a little to the side so he didn't have to see it. "I was a kid, yeah. I'm not now." He shrugged. "Like you said, it, ah, sucked, but it's over. All of it's over, and that part has been over ... a very long time."

"Bullshit." Jack's voice was soft. "You pack it all away, you pack it up nice and neat but it's not ever over. I know that," and he didn't say the name but it hung there between them. Charlie. Jack reached out, hand cupping the back of Daniel's neck, warm and sure against the slightly sweaty skin.

"What do you want me to do?" said Daniel at last, arms up, suddenly irrationally angry. "Yes. Today I watched my parents die. Again. And again. And I had to accept there wasn't anything I could do, then or now. I could play it a billion different ways, more permutations than any of Sam's computer simulations could even begin to envision and they'd still be dead, Jack. No matter how close I might get to a solution, they'd still be dead, and ... I've managed this far, I'll go on managing, right?" He sighed, breathed in deeply, uncoiled himself within and without. "They've been dead more of my life than they were alive for. Sometimes, I can barely even remember what they looked like, what they smelled like or sounded like. Sometimes, I'm not entirely sure I didn't just fucking dream them, you know?" and he wasn't crying but his voice was thick with old grief and he thought maybe his hands were shaking because the cuff of his shirt was damp and he was out of Herradura.

"I know," and the distance between them was suddenly gone. Jack had the glass from his hand and Jack's arms were sinewy and strong around him, holding him. This was ... so very wrong, but he was just so goddamned glad to be ... not alone. It felt good to be touched, to be not alone, to be here with Jack. He clutched back, inhaled the strong, citrusy scent of Jack's aftershave, let his face press into the pulse.

Didn't flinch even a little at the feel of warm breath along the shell of his ear, the press of lips to the soft, naked skin just behind. He pulled in tighter, moaned, felt his body grow hard and hungry even as he heard an answering moan, felt the sting of teeth where before there'd only been breath and tongue.

There were so many reasons why this wouldn't work, couldn't work. Reasons they'd agreed on, but as Jack licked the side of his throat, kissed the tender hollow behind his left ear, all Daniel really understood was that it was a big universe full of empty space, and that he felt the yawning gulf of it in his own belly every morning, every night. 

Jack kissed him, breached his mouth with a strong, surging thrust of his tongue even as his hands fumbled between their bodies, shoving pants and shorts down just barely far enough while Daniel rucked up their shirts. He wondered what the neighbours would be thinking as Jack bucked hard against him, so hard the fridge lifted and shifted slightly, then decided he didn't give a good goddamn as Jack's gun-calloused grip found and caught the sensitive spots on his dick even as Jack laid a steady trail of biting kisses along his throat and jaw and lower lip.

Daniel just grabbed Jack's ass, gave as good as he got, grinding and thrusting and frotting his way to completion. 

Wrong for so many goddamn reasons.

Except, perhaps, that between them it was the only thing right that they had, that they could cling to.

Later, a little drunk on tequila and human touch and the taste of Jack's sweat and spunk, a memory sprang up unbidden.

"She wore Shalimar, when they were going out somewhere," he said into the darkness, against Jack's shoulder.

"Charlie's room always smelled like bubble gum, from his baseball cards," Jack replied, and then neither of them said anything at all.

Sleep came slow and almost sweet. 

End


End file.
